The Lone Knight

Chapter One: C'est la vie

It was a cold day out on the battlefield. Many warriors have died already, and I was there with the remaining Knights. We were a fellowship of six, but 3 have died already. We were sent by a lord in Britain to clear out French fort in the area. I was part of the only remaining survivors, but I was in terrible shape. Arrows had pierced my body in several places, and many more had stuck in my white armor. I still had my long sword, and quarterstaff though, but one of the men of my fellowship was pulling arrows out of my wounds. As we was treating me, an arrow pierced my helmet, and the world around me went black...

I had awoken in a forest clearing, and my head hurt like hell. I could see that the arrows were still in my armor, but the wounds I had were gone.

"Strange.." I thought to myself.

I had decided it be best to stand up, and look around. As I did so, I noticed that I was slumped against a tree. As I took a look around, I saw that I was not in Britain any longer. The land around me was foreign, and strange. I luckily still had my weapons, and decided to look for a path.

It wasn't long before I found one, and saw myself in the largest forest I've ever seen. The local wildlife was strange as well, looking more like the things of our legends. I continued on until I saw a strange animal. It was part cat, part scorpion, and part bat.

"Manticore..." I said to myself before the beast heard my voice. It let out a roar and started to charge at me. As it was doing so, my instincts kicked in, me pulling my quarterstaff from my back.

"HAVE AT THEE, YOU FOUL WRETCH!!!" I yelled before swinging the weighted staff down on the poor creature's head

The manticore stopped  dead in it's tracks as I struck it, most likely dazing it. I used this chance to continue to strike it's head, me grunting with every swing. I heard a sickening crack, and continued to beat the beasts skull inward, until I saw that the top half of it's skull was completely destroyed. I thanked God for giving me the strength to do this, and continued down the path.

I just kept walking down the path until I found a hunched body by a tree. I inched closer, and found that it was the body of a French marksman. I seen that he had his crossbow and bolts on him, but his dagger was nowhere to be found. I also noticed that he had his throat slit. "Most likely some of our men" I thought to myself. I quickly looted the weapon and ammo, thankful that I was the son of a wealthy vassal, and had much training with many weapons and skills. I quickly noticed that the crossbow was winch pulled, having an extremely long bow, and very high tension cord. I began to winch the cord back, using both of my feet to keep the massive weapon steady. As I finally finished, I was able to put one of the heavy bolts in place, making it seem like I was holding something more akin to a miniature ballista than a crossbow. I took one look at the Frenchman, and saw that his eyes had the picture of pure fear planted on them. I decided to at least do some good, and close his eyes before I pulled him under a bush. Not a proper burial, but enough that he wont be disturbed by more travelers.

I continued upon my trail until I found a survivor of this whole mess. I unsheathed my longsword, but held it at my side, trying not to look as threatening.

"Hello good sir!" I yelled to the man.

"Qui êtes-vous? Où suis-je?!" The obviously French man said.

I knew French, but I didn't like the prospect of me being with this man. Either way, I had to talk to this fellow one way or another.

(Translated from French to English)

"I am a knight of Britain. As to the question of where we are, I have no idea" I answered.

"It is good to hear a friendly voice, though I don't suppose we could put our differences aside to work together?"

"I don't see why not, Frenchie. Tell me your name, please."

"I am Sir Gustav De La Fontaine. What is your's?"

"I'm Sir Bertram. I believe that since our introductions are in order, we should make haste to the end of this abyssal forest."

He nodded, and followed me on the trail.

And God was on our side that day.

We made it out without any sort of problems. Sir Gustav was slightly scratched up, but that was do to his fondness for chainmail more than anything. We were also able to scavenge some weapons from other fallen soldiers. Gustav now has a longbow and a maul, while I had enough room for a few more bolts. But nonetheless, we continued on the trail until we saw a cottage in the distance.

"Do you want to try our luck Frenchman?" I asked.

"I slightly do, but we don't know where we are..." He paused for a moment. "We need to find a town before we try to talk to anyone."

"Fine by me."

We went around the cottage, and went over a hill. As soon as we cleared it, we saw a small town filled with pastel-colored ponies in the distance.

"This is..."

"Interesting." I finished for him.

"Should... should we continue onwards?" He asked.

"Hmm..." I though to myself for a brief moment before turning to him. "Yes. Let us go onward."

We continued to the town, our weapons sheathed. As we got nearer, we could see that some of the ponies had wings, while others had horns. I must say that we were a tad bit amazed to see this. Though we continued on, and finally entered the town. When we did, we got some looks of terror from the ponies as they ran away. I couldn't blame them though, we did look grossly intimidating. We got to the center of town, and found that the rather large circular building must be the government office. We both looked at each other, and entered the building. As we got inside, we saw a mare with a brown coat, a white mane, and... glasses? She took one look at us, and just about screamed. It wasn't until I spoke, in English mind you, that she calmed down.

"Fair lady, why do you seem so distressed?" I asked her in a soothing tone.

"You... you can talk?" She asked me in a startled tone. I was honestly more surprised that she could speak, but I mostly expected it.

"Yes I can madam. May I ask you of your name?"

"M-my name is Mayor Mare."

"Ah, it is good to see a mayor! My name is Sir Bertram, and my friend is Sir Gustav."

She seemed to calm down a little bit, but after a moment of silence, she asked why we were here.

"We were coming out of that forest out of there when we saw your town. We thought that it might be a good place to ask questions on where we are."

"You were in the Everfree?!" Her eyes wide with shock, wonder, or both.

"I think so. But we are still trying to figure out how we got here."

"I don't think I can give you that answer." She said sadly, but brightened up when she said her next statement. "But I think I might know somepony who does know!"

"Great then! Can you lead us?"

She agreed to lead us to the library in town. We got a few stares cast our way, but since we were with the mayor, it didn't provoke much suspicion. As when got to the library, we noticed that it was a tree.

"Hmm... interesting..."

The mayor told us that a unicorn by the name of Twilight Sparkle lived here, and she would be more than willing to help us. When the unicorn opened the door, she eeped in surprise, but calmed down when she saw the mayor.

"Twilight, these two seem to have a problem."

"What would that be mayor?" She stepped out from behind the door, and we could see her wings. The mayor and I explained our predicament, and how we could fix it.

"Hmm..." She said as she thought. "I can't really seem sure how to fix something like this! You two have been ripped from your world, and are stuck here for a while." She looked at Gustav, and back at me. "Why isn't he talking?"

"He speaks a different language than us..."

Twilight had a sparkle in her eye "I know a spell that might help with that!"

"By all means, go ahead."

She readied her horn, and shot a beam of purple magic into Gustav, making him fly back a bit.

"In God's name, what was that for?" He yelled.

"To help you understand us better." Twilight said. To say the least, Gustav was shocked that he was able to understand the Purple mare. As our conversation continued, it became clear to both of us that we would most likely not be able to get back home. We both had thought about this, and were prepared for it.

"Do you know where we could get a few tents by chance? Also, it would be nice if we could borrow some bedrolls as well."

"I have a couple of spare tents, and some sleeping bags. I can bring them out if you want." Twilight said happily, eager to help.

"That would do us good" Gustav said. "We will be in the field by the covered bridge."

And off we went to set up the tents and get a fire started. Gustav and I said our thanks as we got settled in to our tents. I couldn't help but think that we had a long time ahead of us...